voiceover. i love my characters. and i would say that about lisa simpson even if i didn't voice are. characters ever created for the small screen. thirty years. as a. boy. so much. as. i feel like who has the last laugh now. that way. they don't believe in the girls.

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are special guest is yardley smith the emmy award winning voice actors comedienne and playwright. best known of course is the voice of lisa simpson on the simpsons which just completed its twenty eighth season making it the longest running scripted series of american history. and that it's a failure in front of the cavalry we've seen yardley in shows like herman's head and dharma and greg and films like maximum overdrive and as good as it gets her newest film oils is available on video on demand we'll talk about miles in a minute twenty eight years you were with us from the start yes how did you get the part of lisa. it's sort of a i feel like it's a lot of turk turner discovered in the drugstore kind of story i was doing as

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really small play at a tiny theater in los angeles and the casting director who ended up casting the simpsons a year later came to see that play and i could like seventeen people saw this play and she was one of them and she remembered me and said come in and read for this voice or actually first they had me read for bart but i knew yeah but i sound so much like a girl that lasted about seven seconds and they're like no no no how about the sister and i had never done voiceover before and i had no interest in doing it so it wasn't like oh my god this will be great i thought who wants you that isn't part of my plan to rule the world so. but i went and thank goodness i did did you as the guy who saw you in the theater and what he's showing you it was actually a woman and she. i you know that's a good question i think she felt like i had such a and i knew usual because hake and an unusual pitch for sure but she was

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dead she knew she said she knew right from the outset i know who should play lisa simpson does lisa told you so i do talk now and i do you know i i sort of had not that many options because i and i am the only person on the show who does one voice so though every about every five years i get to do an all woman which i feel i feel like is just sort of a give me but lisa same sense of like this size squeeze my throat off a little bit which is really counterintuitive when they make me sing which they make me saying a lot on that show. but i love lisa simpson and i remember thinking i sound like i'm about twelve in real life and they told me that lisa was eight so i thought well then i should probably just i should she. did you think it would be a hit oh no you know when we started we were doing the little twenty second bumpers on the tracey tracey ullman show and they sure had them she warned them into that sketch comedy show just before the commercial breaks and they told

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a whole story in about a minute and that we broke off to a half hour series after two seasons of tracey ullman and everybody said fox is crazy this is the worst idea that a network has ever had there hasn't been an animated show on in prime time since the flintstones and then we hit so big i mean so big we were mid-season replacement so we started in january of one thousand nine hundred ninety although the first half hour episode to air was the christmas special in one thousand nine hundred nine how many movies did you do. for the simpsons so far only one and people are clamoring for a second one matters second you know i i think they really want to make sure that it is. as good as and does justice to the first they don't want to just crank out a sequel i don't know i don't know larry as a kid we had teased about your voice oh my gosh so much because you have an unusual and i do and then it sort of sounds exactly the same as it did when i was seven but

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i feel like hey who has the last laugh now so. six hundred fifty episodes yes i've done to them yes you have now you were with the other cat when i were dead along i was in the studio just dropped the pages of the floor of the writer's shooting the right we were always prefer to have our guest stars come in and record with us if their schedules were permit and we'd do it all together like an all radio play which is actually quite unusual a lot of animated shows you just go in and do it by yourself for instance when we had the family guy simpsons crossover. i went to the family guy studios and i read all of lisa's lines by myself they do a bottom cells where they do but i just think it's better it's more like a conversation right the way you say a line well obviously inform the way i respond so while i can do lisa simpson in a vacuum if i need to i prefer to do it with my other cast members anyway you know

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a lot of guest cameos to we do or thirty twenty is going to be thirty years you cited two years yes we're going to go through season thirty which we're just in the middle of recording season twenty nine now and we have one more after that and i think we're probably about halfway done. on reflection why has it worked you know i really facing that a big part of that is that we get no studio or network notes because it's sort of that thing where you can't have too many cooks spoiling the soup and if you have too much input coming from all sides then. somebody has to steer the ship and so the writers write for themselves and. i think if you if you were to do a spread sheet of really successful shows and what's the one thing that's the simpsons has that nobody else has and it is that we get no studio and network notes it's the only thing and i started that's true and that was. a

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provision that james l. brooks our executive producer said i'll only do the half hour shows if that's one of their one of the rules and they're like ok because you know this show will never last anyway it's always james oh he's he's well we see him every week still doing movies yeah. and he you know he's such a grab brilliant storyteller too and he comes and to every read through and and works with the writers to revise the script i just really admire his continued involvement to truth we never get tired of it. you know what i don't sometimes you get tired of something just because you want to stay home that day but i have to say i love my character so much and i would i would say that about lisa simpson even if i didn't voice or she's truly one of the

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great female characters ever created for the small screen be glorious. because she's funny and she is empathic and she's super smart and talented and resilient she's so unbelievably resilient like you know she doesn't have any friends. nothing ever really seems to work out for her she's asked to live in the same house as bart simpson and the girl never gives up. i just. get right and she doesn't age so she's been eight for thirty years and the funny thing is is that she's eight on the show and then if she has a birthday she's eight and then she turns eight and we just on talk about that are doing on stage was you first. chance who used to do theater not as much now and it's very similar in los angeles is obviously quite different than it is in new york we have a lot of what we call equity waiver theater so a ninety nine seats or less and. it's just a it's

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a very different kind of grassroots theater scene here. but no the short answer is i don't get to do as much as i would like. you on getting the rules probably. you know it's so specific and sometimes people can't get past it i remember when i did the mad men i just did a tiny little role on mad men and and the executive producer he came up to me and said yardley we're so happy to have you here we wanted to give your book a better role a bigger role but you're not a blender. thank you i think. you have great. without your movies you on the street today you know i do actually and i knew from movies and because i sort of some people change a lot over the years in terms of their parents i feel like i sort of look the same

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for instance if you saw a picture of me when i was a baby go that's yardley hundred percent yardley there be no mistake so and i do a lot of press for the simpsons so. you'd be surprised pretty much every day somebody comes up as ok what's models about you or plays mother no i play his guidance counsellor and what he's so it's about this young young man who. wants to get out of his small town in illinois and the way he figures out he can do this because he just any money for college because his father squandered it on his mistress is that he will get a scholarship for volleyball the problem is there's only a girl's voluble team at his school but he joins the team anyway because he's like you know i should be able to do that you can't discriminate against me because i'm a boy and it causes quite a quite a ruckus and it's based on a true story really yeah as you jerry with the team he does but then other teams

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start to boycott the matches and there's a petition to say you can't have this guy on the team and ultimately he's kicked off the team but he ends up taking a chance and just going to chicago anyway because he figures i will not let this stop me from. attaining my dream it's really lovely as we have tim boardman and he's such a it's so wonderful to work with actors who are pretty new to the business to have a there's a freshness and enthusiasm and not yet jadedness about them to be honest and they have such optimism it's really lovely and touching and inspiring you enjoy doing it i do so much other than lisa what role has meant the most to you you know i did way back at the beginning of my career one of my favorite roles of all time was i was playing luisa in molière's play the imaginary invalid at the arena stage

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in washington d.c. where i grew up you know where you get more i didn't mean twenty years there yeah my father was a journalist for the washington post named j y smith j period why period smith that's really yardley comes from i think jonathan yardley yes viewed from the absolutely. so i there i was in d.c. and i did this play at arena stage it was one seeing but it was just fantastic so brilliant and i would get exit applause every night and the best time i was working with an actor named richard bower who was a company member at the time and you know that was what in one thousand nine hundred eighty two and it still has such a lasting impression on me go to any break let's show you a clip from miles what can i do for you i'm here because i'm looking for a new college oh all right that tell me what you think and ok i'm looking for

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a school in chicago i want to do a film program at columbia college but to sponsor right right well it is an art school. you know springfield community has a film studies program and i hear the white southern is quite good yet but it needs to be in chicago i'm afraid if i stay here one more day then i have to get stuck here like everyone else. oh. right. so is it too late for scholarships well i have a list this is pretty common question so i keep this list of college scholarships that are available in chicago why don't you have a look at that what's a national merit scholar oh i eat out quite qualify for that so there's a kick. men's volleyball scholarship to a loyal university what's this is just one sense well that's in chicago. yes but

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you have to be on the bible team don't get on the team i'm good sweetie it's a girl's team. well is there a law saying that a boy can't plan a girl's team you know we did have this come up with the girl and football if he sees to go out and because of title nine we let her play but we never had a boy i want to be on a girls team and i mean. that i'm just saying i think that maybe you should continue to look for other options. yeah when we were journeying we talked about dream costars biggest risks weirdest talents in a game of if you only knew with yodlee smith don't go away. if. you

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. were going to be good like. this one. analyze the bottom. line with like you know i got. three. kids. so. i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta emails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided. to support his claims. i also know he self in a senate hearing. for the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied to be

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n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo for government claims that. he would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. smith. smith lisa simpson on the simpsons the newest film is miles with my friend so. yes. how does he get away with it. i mean. come on and i know i know it doesn't do that i know we don't. you know i think it's

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sort of a case where you test the waters you see how far you can push that envelope and if if you're able to walk that line where the backlash is gets you better ratings and people are still responding to it then you just kind of go ok but it's a really fine line to walk because kids watch it yeah they do i know but you know i also would always hear from kids who are grown ups now are kids now like my parents are let me watch the simpsons so i hope at least or perhaps there are parents going yeah no you can watch the simpsons but now you can't watch family guy family guy doing some of the simpsons and simpsons appear on the family i think it was sort of more that we appeared out of family guy because we went to family guy's town and that's where when i we did that episode i actually recorded lisa simpson those lines by myself in a booth at the family guy studios which again is are unusual for our process did

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they have you do anything crazy no but i felt you know my scenes were with meg and i felt so terrible that meg was so bad at everything and lisa simpson had to be the one to break the news to her it hurt my heart larry never done care does another show no never i don't have that kind of range why not let mrs simpson spin off such a good idea i love this idea release of for a second had lisa sam said we go on your own show us a way thank you from your lips to god's ears larry or i don't care rice is here and they give you one i don't know how they don't even do merchandise with lisa simpson they don't believe in the girls that true no that's. ok we're going to play a little game of you only knew yardley i just saw who's your celebrity crushes that kid. david cassidy from the partridge family most embarrassing moment well i had

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one last night where i was doing telling my own story at the television academy at this event called story t.v. and i had my notes in my hand and then i realized on the third page of my notes they were upside down and i thought oh god now what and i have this thing where i really want to be polished and perfect and it wasn't perfect but it was spontaneous and authentic i'm cold but still it haunts me where it is talent. god these are hard i don't know ok. what's the best describe you. ambitious resilient. and determined was the moment you knew you'd made it. this piece of advice you ever got be on time most growing up in washington was it was great as washington at that time was sort of like a big small town and you know i took three city buses to school it was it was so

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different than it is now a high school i went to marais which was at that time a very progressive private school and you know from the different traits of our friends and national cathedral school and i did school theater and i i was pretty independent and it was a good place to test those waters i think to go to college there too i didn't get into college i did i. was the biggest risk ever took my one woman show called more which i wrote and performed ten years ago and it was very personal which i don't regret but i do think there's a really again a delicate line between spilling your guts and people feeling like that was a great story and or feeling like it was totally self-indulgent and the reviews were mixed although the new york times loved it dream costar the rock. person from history you'd like to portray on screen queen elizabeth the first t.v. show you're embarrassed to say you watch you. know if you could have something

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named after you what would be ice cream funniest person you know. these are hard larry funny here and i love. allie leave a guy who writes for transparent a favorite voice everything that hank azaria does he says it's credible if you were mad or would you be a ballroom dancer. well she's she's different from social media questions love this k g m ten sixteen on twitter could we ever see another simpsons movie let's hope so we're all clamoring for it do you think you go beyond thirty years you know what i've been wrong about this answer so much i now stop predicting as strong as on twitter of holies in sims lisa simpson and your smith alike and how are they different well she's much smarter than i am. but we share

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a strong sense of justice. and i like to think we both have a great sense of humor alan called me on face book would you do a cameo in a new maximum overdrive silm. you know that film was a complete bomb when it came out like it was barely out long enough to run and credits so it's sort of funny that it's now this huge cult favorite i don't think anybody's hoping that we make a sequel to that why do you think it is a cult is to say i mean it and it didn't it didn't become a cult favorite in like a couple of years it took that song came out in eighty five so that's roughly a hundred years ago it's the only film that stephen king wrote and also directed and i think at that time cable was sort of new and there were needed things to run so same with legend of billie jean which was also a failure when it was released and they just read it read it ran if you are an insomniac you like a lot better than store of maximum overdrive emilio estefan is all right brice the

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knobs on facebook what do you do to keep lisa's voice the same over all the years i don't have much choice i'm not that gifted i just like it's this that's all it is although sometimes i watch an episode and i think what is that you don't even sound like lisa simpson in this episode like i've i do notice some inconsistency is which i feel like are on me when she goes off where does it go it goes a little lower it starts to sound a little bit more like yardley. you go visit like on facebook was there ever an episode of the simpsons that you disagreed with the storyline felisa yes. it doesn't happen very often but there was an episode many years ago where she they wrote her having a crush on this boy and to me it was just it was a little too over sexualized and i thought she's eight and while she's precocious

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she's not precocious like that and whenever they and it's again rare that they write a. line that i don't think lisa would say i have to fight that fire for my girl i feel a moral obligation to stick up for her my girl yes i may not win that fight but i have to fight it out of that episode go they changed it. call more on facebook what was jack nicholson why do work with on as good as it gets i've met i met obama several times and the presence is so enormous and so sort of intimidating and jack nicholson was like that and he's very intense and very moving. more because on twitter we're very good in the legenda billie jean. you tell me marcus do you speak french when you're working you know this whole thing now that's that's like on wikipedia french born american actress yardley smith now sort of implies that i am french that i would want to friendship i was my father was

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a foreign correspondent for u.p.i. back and i was born in sixty four so you're u.p.i. i'm in the united president denies right. i do but again i couldn't get a french passport because both my parents are american and i'm american and french said no it doesn't work that way they don't have that reciprocity where if you're born there you automatically qualify they said we'll give you a visa and i'm like i don't need a visa what about the passport like now kristie johnston what are your favorite memories from working on maximum overdrive. well i do remember it was a very low budget and they sort of asked me to do my own stunts and i remember having to that there's a scene where we're stuck in this truck stop in the trucks are going wild and there's a scene where they say ok yardley we're going to drive a cadillac which is supposedly now unmanned through the wall of the truck stop and we only get one take because only wrecks the roll the wall and you have to stand there and don't move until we say so i'm like ok and don't worry the cadillac will

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be coming really slowly i'm like great so there i go on my mark and they go roll it and this thing comes so fast through that was like. and so and i can't move until they say go and i really i thought well this is it this is how my life friends and finally this at and so i dived to the right glass in my hair i mean it was kind of but they're like great shot i can't ever forget that that's true to stephen king nice to do it he's lovely he was you know and he was so guy humble and he admitted that he didn't know what he was doing but he was so game. i really enjoyed him. i enjoy you what a pleasure thank you big thanks to my guest yardley smith be sure to see miles is out now on video on demand and as always you can find me on twitter king's things see you next time say goodbye let's combine the fact.

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that. the american middle choir has been railroaded by washington politics. big body work that's thrown battle. boy that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in. on r t america i'll make sure you don't get railroad and you'll get the straight talk on the straight news. to. our culture is awash in lives dominated by streams of never ending electronic

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hallucinations that. fiction until they are indistinguishable we have become the most deluded society on politics it's a species of endless and needless political theater politicians more than just celebrity are two ruling parties are in reality one part of corporate and those who attempt to puncture this. breathless universe of fake news just signed to push through the cruelty and exploitation of the neo liberal are pushed so far to the margins of society including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money that we might as well be mice squeaking against an avalanche squeak we've lost. your launching and our team. that's.

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basically everything that you think you know about civil society have broken down. there's always going to be somebody else one step ahead of the game. who should not be the same as the normalising pilot and we don't need people that think like this on our planet. this is an incredibly tense situation. she's. going. to lose her own. greetings and salutations. in order for us to better understand the present and even predict the future one must study the past history can be taught or learned and regurgitated through memorization but to truly understand history it must be felt in one's heart and soul but where can one find the heart and soul of history.